Hi, I'm Chi Hsi!

I'm a UX Designer who believes that making changes in daily microinteractions will lead to vast improvements in user-centered designs.

My goals are to evaluate various navigation interaction methods within unique systems, discover what works and doesn't work for systems based on real users' feedback during usability tests, and provide recommendations to make the user experience better.

Most of my design work has been on SaaS ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) products with past clients such as SAP and Syscon Justice Systems.

education

I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Interaction Design from Simon Fraser University's School of Interactive Arts & Technology program.

Through Coursera, I have two statements of accomplishment from Stanford University in Human-Computer Interaction, and from the University of Maryland in Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies.

contact

Connect with me at
chihsi.ch @ gmail

My UX Journey

the beginning

When I was 9, I was introduced to the marvellous tech world because of my younger brother. He survived a case of meningitis and received a cochlear implant when he was 3. Ever since then, I wanted to work in the tech industry to build software and hardware that can benefit the lives of others.

first interview

Back in Fall 2011, I worked at SAP in St. Leon-Rot, Germany on their Business ByDesign product - their cloud-based ERP and business intelligence solution for mid-sized companies.

first wireframes

During the interview process, I was given the task to design a new process and interface for a vacation request (time-off) system. They gave me 10 days to create mock-ups and make a 15 minutes presentation during the interview. They provided a 2-page PDF document with the scenario, process guidelines, and "must-have" features.

I had not used a vacation request system before, so the first step I did was an online search for examples of existing systems. Then I sketched out drafts for the features and organized the order of my presentation. I used Adobe Illustrator to create wireframes for the employee form page, email notifications to allow the employer to accept or reject the request, and calendar views for both the employer and employee to see if there are any team schedule conflicts.

My interviewer (and soon-to-be supervisor), Anja Wipfler, said that I gave a strong rationale to where features were placed. She also told me it looked very similar to SAP's current system, too. I was surprised by that comment because I didn't have access, but saw it was true when I used it a couple months later during my internship.

international internship

Two months later, I flew from Canada to Germany to begin my UX Design internship.

My role was to research and compare interactions for data management and onboarding processes. While evaluating use cases, I made interactive mock-ups using the software that I had access to which was Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, and Microsoft PowerPoint. In PowerPoint, I created 30 to 40 images and placed them in a presentation with mouse over and hyperlink actions to cover over the possible interactions and summarized the usability results from 15 colleagues' perspectives.

With the results and presentations I created, the senior UX designers presented the information to the management and development team to discuss implementation ideas for improving their current systems.

data management experience

In Fall 2012, I worked at BlackBerry as a Project Coordinator on their OS Program Management team.

Initially, my daily responsibilities were to compile summary reports using Microsoft Excel and sent updates and deadlines regarding the upcoming hardware and prototypes to 160 senior VP directors, project managers, senior developers, and the Operations team. This became an UX related role because I ended up assisting the Hip Stability team in discovering usability issues with the BlackBerry10 (BB10) devices before the official launch.

Even though the task seemed quite daunting at first, I created a process to contact 40 to 50 users, assembled a spreadsheet report, and redirected the issues to the correct development team to quickly resolve the prioritized issues on a daily basis. Every week, I had an average of 100 to 150 responses because I sent personalized emails to users asking directly for them to recall what had happened before the reported issues occurred.

From this experience, I became curious about qualitative and quantitative research and saw first hand how the information we gathered had impacted the development processes for a product.

scrums, scrums, and more scrums

In 2013 to 2014, I worked at Syscon Justice Systems as a Junior UX Designer. We used the agile development method with 2 week sprints.

My main tasks were to create mock-ups in Axure for over 20 new features and 4 global changes. I presented some of my design changes in front of 40 colleagues on a bi-weekly basis. Additionally, I fixed front-end development issues with CSS/HTML in Sublime Text 2 and used CSS media queries for responsive design implementation.

Through this experience, I worked closely with Business Analysts, Developers, Technical Writers, and SMEs to fully implement designs. With my fellow UX Designers, we had daily UX meetings to receive feedback on wireframes and mock-ups, and discuss other possible solutions.

international design competition

In 2014, I entered the D&AD New Blood Awards with a team of 4 - Marie Cheung, Theresa Chong, and Jan Castro.

Our presentation can be found here: ASOSxME.pdf

brief

ASOS’ ambition is to become the number one online fashion destination for 20 somethings worldwide. The challenge was aimed to predict what's next after "streetstyle." How can they, the consumers, present and share fashion inspiration in an entirely new way?

approach

We analyzed what ASOS featured on their current websites and mobile applications. We tried to look for what they were lacking but we believed that they have established a strong online community presence. So our team switched our mindset to work with what they had already and elaborated on solutions that we felt matched with their goals.

concept

We designed a mobile site called ASOSxME to solve existing issues into a unique social shopping experience that will not only help track new trends, but also engage with the consumers and become a meaningful experience. ASOSxMe is a collaboration between ASOS and its consumers, where style inspiration and fashion pieces inspires and is inspired by its consumers. Our finalized features revolved around this statement we created: "ASOS consumers are explorers - they want to set their own trends."

my role

I was in charge of time estimation from when we started the project to the contest deadline. I created the agenda for each meeting so we could focus on accomplishing small goals which would lead into our finalized concept. This was purely a design proposal so everyone on the team brainstormed, sketched, and shared feature ideas together.

started UX consulting

I evaluated GetWorker's onboarding process for their Crewdriver app to improve their client retention ratings. I analyzed the existing UI functionality and created wireframes for a consistent UI design.

After a few weeks, I worked with them again as an UI Designer and Front-end Developer to help them merge their separate product applications into one coherent application. I applied CSS changes in their Bootstrap templates. Within 3 weeks, we redesigned their UI and implemented the changes.

new opportunity in 2015

I was given the opportunity to work as a Junior Researcher at FCV Interactive.

While I was guided by my Research Team colleagues, I led usability studies for websites on desktop and mobile devices, and wrote test plans following similarly to the MeasuringU template, and created presentations featuring our qualitative and/or quantitative findings. As we wrote recommendations for our clients to use to improve the UX in their systems, I started to think more about overall strategies instead of providing straightforward changes to UI patterns.

We used Morae products for our recording and observation tools to conduct studies in-lab and remotely. After our client, like Destination British Columbia, received our findings presentation for their HelloBC website, they may hire FCV again to redesign their website and the research team would answer any further questions UX Architects have to aid with the redesign solutions.

what's in store for my future?

Have an idea and want to collaborate with me? Feel free to message me at chihsi.ch @ gmail.